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Sunday, January 31, 2016

One Last Day in LA!

I LEAVE FOR ISRAEL TOMORROW. I can't believe it's finally here. I feel like I am somehow going to miss my plane, oversleep, or somehow forget that my flight is tomorrow.

(On a related note, thank chickens I didn't go to Hume this past weekend. I would be stuck there tonight! First time I can ever recall a group actually getting stuck up there. It would have been a dream come true as a kid! And a...dream come inconvenienced nowadays. And ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE this year.)

But today was a lovely day. I had breakfast in bed for the first time, and then drove off to get a mani/pedi.

First ever breakfast in bed! Grapefruit, eggs, turkey bacon, and a cinnamon roll.

Fun car we saw on the way to the nail salon

Pretty nails

Tonight there was more Settlers (I lost again, grumpy grumble) and we got to sous-vide the lamb we purchased yesterday. I've never heard of sous-vide-ing before, but essentially you vacuum-wrap an item (in this case, a piece of meat) and put it in a saucepan of water with the sous-vide. The sous-vide makes the water a certain temperature, which slowly cooks the meat and makes it very tender and juicy.

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Before

After

You sear the meet at the very end, for texture.

Lots of cheese while we are sous-vide-ing!

Mmm, burrata!

I made mint sauce for the lamb

I made mint sauce, and there was also roasted carrots (dead-easy),and hasselbacked potatoes which are a little bit like an inside-out potato and a bloomin' onion had a baby. This was perhaps one of the best meals I've ever had, certainly one of the best I've had cooked in student housing. And it was pretty easy, too! Maybe I should invest in a sous-vide, too.

So tasty!

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Fin.

And now we are sitting around, watching BBC America and, once again, relaxing. It is almost hard to remember that this is not normal, which I suppose is the ideal sort of vacation: when you completely forget about reality.

But this time tomorrow, I will be on my flight to Tel-Aviv from Newark, and then I'll be in a new country, on a new continent. I can't quite believe it is here. Maybe that is because I normally plan big trips like this for well over six months, whereas this time feels a little bit faster (only four months). But it is like those old Honda commercials imply: when opportunity comes knocking, then you come running. And I want to see Israel.

So off I go! Farewell, US. Next time I post will probably be on the other side of the country, and then: Israel!